


anywhere i want (just not home)

by harleyhearts



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Drowning, F/F, Ghosts, Heavy Angst, Horror, POV Dani Clayton, Song: my tears ricochet (Taylor Swift), Songfic, i'm sorry in advance, might have cried while writing this, short & not sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27592400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harleyhearts/pseuds/harleyhearts
Summary: In the night, like a ghost through the dark, Dani leaves.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	anywhere i want (just not home)

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote something that isn't fluff? it's more likely than you think! yes i still have Many feelings about my two girlies (i have a fluffy au planned for them too, not to worry <3) but i felt like writing something about that Ending after listening to folklore by miss swift 24/7. thank you to my baby Cat for always reading my fics <333 MWAH! also, i'm so sorry in advance, i made myself cry writing this. enjoy?

When Dani wakes, hands hovering over her ~~lover~~ fiance's throat, it is then, only then, she leaves.

She should have left sooner. She shouldn’t have even gone with the gardener in the first place.

This is another lie she tells herself.

Born out of the reflection she meets when she stands up and looks at their vanity mirror, one that has slowly invaded and taken the place of herself.

It is one she is too familiar with, one, that over the years fed on her memories, until the certainty of her experiences, her mistakes, her love for the woman lying in the abandoned bed, faded.

Like it was all a dream.

This was her own doing, she still remembers this much, as she moves closer and tilts her head at the featureless shadow that mimics her movements to perfection.

Dani thinks she let her in to save someone she loved. A little girl.

The lady in the mirror saw the girl too, only, she desperately claimed her as her own.

And Dani cannot remember this little girl’s name, or what she looks like, but she knows the way she tugs on her heartstrings. She has a brother, too.

The only name left in her mind is Jamie.

And the way her memory opens, like a moonflower in bloom, in the icy cold night, a perfect moment. This is how it feels when she thinks of her. Deeply, in her bones.

Dani won’t turn around to look at her lover for the last time, because what she also knows, in her bones, is that her reflection will grasp onto her moment of weakness, and then, it might be too late.

She won’t let it happen.

And so she moves, like a ghost through the dark, the ghosts of a certain little girl, who used to stare over her shoulder when she talked to her. Dani doesn’t understand where this thought comes from.

She’s not sure if it’s a memory, or sleep deprived imagination.

Her lover turns in her sleep, the bed creaking ever so slightly beneath the movement, yet, Dani wills her gaze straightforward.

When her feet touch the kitchen tiles, tiny flames prickle beneath her skin. Her intruder resists. Or her guest.

And she does, pulling the strings of Dani’s mind, desperately shouting, silently, for her to turn around. Dani’s never known strength within herself, not until now.

Unless her lady of the lake has stolen those memories, too, and locked them into the chest of her soul, leaving it to drown.

The screams become louder, the closer the cab comes to approaching the abandoned, painfully silent manor. Empty of the childish fantasies that once awoke everything inside it.

Dani thinks she has seen this place before.

She doesn’t know why this is where she goes, but putting her eyes upon the lake, her intruder’s screams sound more and more like crying.

Stifling sobbing, similar to the sound of a siren, begging, pleading not to go back.

This is her home.

And Dani intends to make this her new home, too.

She knows that much, because here, where the water fills her mouth, throat and lungs, and where the tears she didn’t know she was shedding disappear, is the only place that’ll keep Jamie safe.

And she is what Dani thinks of.

Not the way her lady of the lake thought of her, when she awoke of her slumber in an attempt to gain full control of the young woman’s being, but how Dani has always, always thought of her.

Like a moonflower.

A kiss in a cold greenhouse, the thought of the manor’s lost souls watching fading to the background, in favor of the gardener, who laughed with tears in her eyes.

Dani wonders if her lover will look for her. If she’ll find her.

If sadness, or anger, or hatred will fill her heart, and the memory of Dani will be tainted by her intruder’s doing.

The lines have blurred too much, now, to know where Dani ends, and the lady of the lake begins.

But she remembers the gardener’s promise, in a distant echo. She will feel everything for the both of them.

Dani prays her lover won’t feel her sinking to the sand floor.

She prays she will sleep, sound and peaceful. She prays she won’t curse her name. She prays her tears will remind her of their past, the sweet, warm memories that Dani wishes she could remember clearer.

In the lake, her tears fall heavy. And yet, a room is carved into Dani’s heart, not one by her intruder, but by herself.

And here, she locks the image of Jamie at her happiest.

She won’t let her lady of the lake erase her. Not this one.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you!! for reading!!! if any of you out there enjoy my writing (for some reason ???) and don't know about this, i'm doing a lil holiday/winter event on my tumblr, [missorgana](https://missorgana.tumblr.com/)! it's a fanfiction giveaway <3 u can already join now until the middle of december, basically i'll choose 12 prompts and write fics as presents for my followers throughout the winter month !! very shameful promo, but ah i'd love for you to send me prompts and honored to write some fics for yall <33 check out all the info on the [event tumblr post](https://missorgana.tumblr.com/post/633802820410343424/hello-my-loves-the-winter-times-are-upon-us-and)!


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